Story [Harry Potter] For Keeps--A love story of a girl, a boy and a Quidditch season--H/G

Author's note: So, as many of you may know, I'm very good friends with Kateydidnt. There are a lot of reasons for that, but none of them involve a love of baseball. In fact, until she met me, she had never seen a game. So, one day, she challenged me to write a fic in which the Chudley Cannons were like the Boston Red Sox (my team). If I wrote three chapters, she would watch one of the playoff games. I did so and she was watching the year that the Sox took the 2007 World Series. Anyway, that's how this fic came to be. Some things like Parkinson's Pole have a Muggle association (there's a Pesky Pole in Fenway Park and you might recognize the Cannons' fight song if you've ever been to a BYU game), but this is just a really frequently silly and somewhat romantic fic. And since it's been going for a few years, I have a lot of chapters that I can post. I'll wait a few days between chapters.

PROLOGUE

Dad never knew what he was getting himself into that fateful day in 1989.

I was eight years old with six older brothers and Mum who was much more accustomed to letting me act like a tomboy than trying to raise me as a girl. After all, I was the first female Weasley born in several generations and she had her hands full enough trying to keep the twins from hexing Ron.

When Dad suggested that Uncle Bilius take me out to have some fun, Mum waved a dishtowel distractedly at me and told me not to talk to any strangers, hags or Muggles and to be home by dark.
Our seats weren't even that good. We were behind Parkinson's Pole on the east side of the Quidditch pitch and Dedalus Diggle, who had one of the seats in front of us, wouldn't take off that top hat of his.

Still, it was the first time in a few years that I had enjoyed something without my brothers to nag me and I paid close attention to everything that Uncle Bilius said about the rules of the game, the players on the field and what a "barmy old blunderer" the referee was.

It was a great match?they won by 50 points for the first time that season?and by the time we Flooed back to the Burrow, I was one of the world's most pathetic creatures: A Chudley Cannons fan.

A year later, Uncle Bilius died just twenty-four hours after seeing a Grim. It was the first time that anyone I had known had died and I was quite shaken. He left a few things to our family?Ron's middle name, the Sneakoscope that always sat as a conversation piece on his kitchen table, and other odd things. The one thing that he left to me was the set of season tickets to the Chudley Cannons games.

Since I'm still at Hogwarts, most of those go to my parents or their friends during the school term. My wedding gift to Bill and Fleur was a pair of much-coveted tickets to the Tornadoes/Cannon game that month. Every holiday, though, I find the time to see a few matches for myself and I am probably the only girl in the school who wears a Cannons nightshirt to bed.

The others simply don't know what they're missing, the poor fellows.

They say there is nothing as fine as a game of Quidditch played well. Whoever "they" are, they have never watched a Cannons game. It's true that they're not always the ones who pull ahead at the end or who take home the League cup, but for those of us who want to see a team play with heart, the Cannons never disappoint.

That's why I'm absolutely certain that they'll take the league this year. They won't let me down.

CHAPTER 1

One of the many advantages to having Harry Potter for a fiancé was the fact that he didn't mind the small things that I did. He wasn't much bothered when studying for N.E.W.T.s took priority over the romantic candlelit dinner he had planned. He never complained that I occasionally left one of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes around his house.

One of the things that I appreciated a great deal, though, was the fact that he wasn't conceited. For example, if Dean Thomas or Michael Corner had made the front page of the Daily Prophet, they would have expected me to linger over the article, rereading every word and wondering if the photo made their nose look big. Harry,

 

This is really well-written, DarthIshtar! I particularly loved the line about how Cannons fans were the most pathetic creatures in the world, and Harry's bantering with McGonagall.

Love all the details...it seems very real!